artist's talk

I was invited to an artist's talk at Santa Barbara City College last night. For various reasons, I hadn't attended an art event in some time; too long, really. It was high time I had some involvement with the art world, other than making collages, that is. I'm glad I went.

In conjunction with an exhibition of his work at SBCC's Atkinson Gallery, the artist, Colin Fraser Gray, held a slide lecture talk on campus yesterday. I was not familiar with this local artist's body of work, although I had seen some of his sculpture on State Street, downtown. As you will see, if you explore his website, Gray is fascinated with motion, line, design, parody, absurdity, and subversion, among other things. His Recycling series is especially striking, although I appreciate nearly all of his work, both 3D and 2D.

But the most memorable part of the talk was something he said about desire. He said that, many times, the things we most desire or want to consume, like a new pair of shoes or a new bike, are really just things that we want to make or create. As an example, he cited his own longing for new tools, sometime in the 7os, before he could afford them, which he satisfied by making his own, albeit very fanciful ones (view them). I just love this idea, that we can transmute our desires for material objects into something far more imaginative, moving from consumption to creation.